Whatsoever, for any cause,
Seeketh to take or give
Power above or beyond the Laws,
Suffer it not to live!
Holy State or Holy King–
Or Holy People’s Will–
Have no truck with the senseless thing.
Order the guns and kill!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4cp-W31rVg

I’m told that the Aussies and the Kiwis sing “Recessional” every year on Anzac Day, to the tune “Melita,” familiar as the tune of “Eternal Father, Strong to Save,” aka the Navy Hymn.

We don’t sing it enough these days.

Kipling’s iambic pentameter has had to yield to the different rhythms of spoken French, but Maurois was as good a translator as Kipling was likely to find. Maurois served in the French army in WWI, where he worked as a liaison officer with the British army and served as an interpreter for Winston Churchill at one point– which means that he had a good “ear” for British English. He published a book about Kipling in 1934 titled Kipling and His Works from a French Point of View.

Anyway, here is “Tu seras un Homme, mon fils”

Si tu peux voir détruit l’ouvrage de ta vie
Et sans dire un seul mot te mettre à rebâtir,
Ou perdre en un seul coup le gain de cent parties
Sans un geste et sans un soupir;
Si tu peux être amant sans être fou d’amour,
Si tu peux être fort sans cesser d’être tendre,
Et, te sentant haï, sans haïr à ton tour,
Pourtant lutter et te défendre ;

Si tu peux rencontrer Triomphe après Défaite
Et recevoir ces deux menteurs d’un même front,
Si tu peux conserver ton courage et ta tête
Quand tous les autres les perdront,
Alors les Rois, les Dieux, la Chance et la Victoire
Seront à tous jamais tes esclaves soumis,
Et, ce qui vaut mieux que les Rois et la Gloire
Tu seras un homme, mon fils.

I hope you can absorb the French version of Kipling’s poem into your soul along with the English original.

Two interesting facts about “If–”

The third and fourth lines of the second stanza are painted on the wall of the players’ entrance to the center court of the club where the Wimbledon tennis championships are held:

“If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same”

The second fact is that Kipling wrote the poem for his son John– the son who was killed in WWI at the age of 18.

I loved “Just-So Stories” as a kid. Later I memorized the first verse of “If.” There’s a poem to absorb into one’s soul.
_________________________________________

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

–Rudyard Kipling, “If” (1895)

Plus, I don’t even think schools care about handwriting itself anymore.